Valeska
by InsomniaRiot
Summary: Jerome Valeska is a nightmare Gotham's that everyone tries to survive. Busy from the chaos that keeps the GCPD awake, it turns out to be your job as a hitman to bring peace. But your victim is not just hard to kill, he has something that fascinates you. With this, a slow killing process starts. Do you choose madness or insanity? [Jerome x Fem. Reader x Jeremiah]
1. Request

**○○ All heroes are broken beyond repair.**  
**All villains are just heroes who chose truth over dare. ○○**

Thick smoke from way too expensive cigars reaches you and you know that one more human life will meet its end. That's how it always is when you set foot in this room in which your boss welcomes mad voices and secret seductions on the telephone. Standing on the sides are waiting guardians, tired looks behind dark glasses, distorted faces behind wrong seriousness. That's the way you see it, always again when you come back because you have to.  
Your eyes stop at the sign of the man on the other side of the room. Blonde hair, empty eyes, wide shoulders under a cheap jacket even though he could buy so much more. Nobody knows what he does with the money that he gets. He pays his dogs, that's something you know since you're one of them.  
"At your service." Your voice sounds sharp, bites through long breaths and forgotten ideas just to wait on the side of the daydreams from the men in this room. It makes the atmosphere heavy, perfect for a bunch of murderers. "What can I do for you?"  
His attention reaches you just in this seconds, leaves the feeling that it doesn't exist and fills the corners in the same moment. With something to smoke in his hands, a small line of burned nicotine reaching the air from the barely burning top and twenty seconds that you give this scene before it dies down. There is no change in it. You just enter this room and your boss keeps this cigar, that he lit up but never brought to his lips, between his fingers. He just likes the pungent smell of hot vanilla in a place where the windows are always closed.  
So that the dirty air stays outside.  
So that Gotham stays outside. And you can't argue with that.  
"I have a mission for you," he says, tells the obvious because the formal things in his mind are thicker than blood and because he searches order in his messy live. "It won't take long."  
You nod slowly and understanding, even when it has no worth in his eyes if you understand or not. This is something you know but you do it anyway because it's in your routine. Like killing. Two things that keep you more alive than the blood in your veins: _The routine and sparkling blades full of blood because it wakes your body and shows you, that nothing lasts forever._  
"Your new victim is someone the leaders of Gotham want to see dead. The pay is good... It is really good." Your opposite breaks the silence, lets the air in your ears whir. He sounds normal, less like a man who has seen power in the hands of lost souls. As if he just doesn't care. He turns his back to you, looks trough the dirty glass of the windows with a strange view on the world outside. "I already accepted the job in your name. There is no time frame. If he dies it's enough."  
"And what's his name?"  
"_Jerome Valeska_." A heavy tone in his voice, maybe a silent question behind it that you don't understand. "Crazy in its saddest state, forgotten from the world that he wants to entertain so that the whole attention is lying on him. Clever this child Gotham's. This town has invited a new player on the table of murderers and maniacs. Revise this mistake."  
"Of course, Mister Halmond."

You wait, just for a few seconds because there is always this little possibility for more. Time stays in this place, silently moving on while the ticking simply doesn't exist. Frozen faces, past stories, not a single movement. Nothing than the picture in front of you changes. The cigar disappeared, the smoke died down and your boss is standing in front of this window – lost in Gotham's sight.  
Turning on the landing with a quick move you dare to breathe in. The door that will bring you back to the silent chaos in dirty business is open, was never closed. Your thoughts are attached to the job from which you know that you will manage it. Loosing is not on your agenda because you're not allowed to mess up. You never were. And you breathe out.  
You start to follow the showy carpet with long steps, out of those walls full of quiet questions, to the floor – a home of nostalgic pictures without love. They pass beside you in a row while your thoughts are searching for a plan, full of vanilla that stays deep in your clothes. Normally you tend to kill people the way they lived. Sometimes surrounded by liquor bottles who mostly turn tired souls into embittered decisions. More often you leave a grave of medication, filled in injections whose needles are already rusting. They greeting death rarely in the arms of a loved one because nobody in this town is able to love. Lovely affection is just a dream that turns into a twisted fact until the end, where everyone recognizes that it was just a wish for something else than the grey facades and flickering street lights. They all want something different than Gotham but nevertheless, they are living in this final destination where dreams embody the shards to death.  
Even you have heard from Jerome. You watched how he died and you heard from the strange way he survived it. He searches for entertainment and wants to see the dancers of his show burn. A game of the crazy because there are no rules in their universe and because the truth is laughing about them. You can understand it because you've seen the dark alleys and crying children too. Everything on the world seems like a bad joke in the light of reality. Everyone is speaking about someone, mean words, lies, unknown opinions without permission. In the very same moment, they attack others, physical, psychical. Is there no reason to do so people just create one. Between left friends, broken relationships and wrong smiles with the lie that everything is just fine, there always exists enough space to lose the right mind. Everyone has those days. Some get over it, others choke on it. People like Jerome find a line in the middle but tend to go too far in a town where nobody can go far enough. If you have to destroy this behaviour then it has to be with a game. One that makes you sigh so that you can feel your warm breath on your lips.  
You have absolutely no idea what kind of game it should be.

While your steps crawl over the walls, because the light on the ceiling is annoyingly unstable, you aim for the stairs downward. You don't even think about taking the lift, want to decide for yourself when you go and when you stop. It's the same wish to decide that gives you the idea of asking for help. There is no way to kill Jerome in a nice manner if you're alone.  
The sole of your shoes echoes on the way down because the carpet here was replaced with marble and because there is just this small railing. The echo pushes against the walls, touches your ears in every breath in which you can hear your heart beating. It isn't special. In no way. And it passes by without any reaction from your side. There is no reason to feel more than the muffled freedom within a cage from which you all just look but find no way out.  
You ignore the tone of your steps, prefer to think about Alva who could help you. _Maybe_. She's living in this place way longer than you. At least you like to think this way, mostly while you watch her playing with lives and patching up criminals. As a doctor of the "_underworld_", she knows what she does. Most of the time she even knows it more than you and she's never at a loss of ideas for a killing that looks like art. Just to have those fantasies she's having her basement at the bottom of the building, far away from the sight of others. The way down there is filled with steps, cold words and dead eyes. Alva collects them. She's collecting eyeballs in big bottles so that the way down to her door doesn't feel lonely. And with the hope that the work of others will be seen by more than one person.  
You feel the hostile looks on your skin, the strange feeling to be watched and judged. Normally nobody looks at you. On the outside, you are an absolutely normal human being on the streets of this town. Of course, it's uncomfortable when your transparent state changes.  
Nobody should be able to see a shadow.

Reaching the bottom you wait on the last step, breathing in because the picture behind the door in front of you will never be normal. Alva is a person who likes to be between corpses and cut up limbs. She counts to the people who see the beauty in the abstruse and hope in Gotham. In her world is enough space for a "_between_" while all the other people think about "_all or nothing_". Maybe she is optimism in its most scattered form.  
One of your hands touches the cold metal handle which separates you from the world behind the mind. Your visits are often but stepping inside is still a hurdle. Every time. The cold reaches through your hand to the bones, the wish to just turn around lays soft an arm around your shoulders. Nevertheless, you open the door.  
With a smooth move, a room full of muffled love and the smell of sweet blood with antiseptic opens to you. White tiles on the walls, white linoleum to your feet, glaring light on the ceiling and red swabs in between. Countless bowls find a place on steady tables, guts in glass bottles a home in a shelf. Documents and files are scattering their black letters on a chair, under a dead body, on places where they don't belong. Alva stopped caring a long time ago, ignores the chaos, works happily on her projects. For a moment you watch her, observe how she pulls long strings through the soft flesh of a tongue. Her patient is dead, there is just a little bit blood left inside him but you somehow still believe to hear his unsteady breathing. One time this feeling is interrupted by a clink, coming from a needle which collides with a key. With that, the picture turns into a whole. She is sewing a key into the tongue of this corpse for a game that she's going to play after this. You don't know what she is planning in detail but you know that this isn't the first time.

"Do you want to help or are you just here to put your eyes in my collection?"  
Alva brings you out of your observation, let's your attention freeze on her body. Tangled hair, black as night, standing in every direction while being bound into a tail that she never opens. The cigarette in the corner of her mouth has gone out, tells you that she forgot it. Between a scalpel and cotton swabs, her orange nails are shining. They don't match with the black-white dotted dress that she always wears. Even in this place, the time seems to find a halt, makes everything fragile at the same moment.  
"I have a new mission," you say, standing at one point not moving.  
"And because of that, you are visiting me? I'm happy I think."  
"My victim is Jerome Valeska. I could need some help for a fitting death." You slowly lean toward the wall, forget about the bottles and watch how Alva is looking at you. She always does things like that because she still believes that you have a heart. There is something inside of her that hopes that one day you will just leave this business. But you learned to control your feelings inside these walls, to show a simple smile because it is easier.  
"Jerome... Jerome... The living dead one?" She asks even though she knows the answer. "How interesting. I don't think you can use my new work for this. I just have no idea what this Valeska boy could do with a corpse in which tongue I put a key for the safe of the mayor."  
"And between all that I have no idea how that should kill him," you sigh because it's true and because Alva tends to be a hand full from time to time.  
"That's true. We need a new idea. I can think about something... Maybe a game between heavy walls and locked windows would be the right thing. The one who is still standing in the end wins, I think."  
"A show. A performance how he does with others when he wants to. That sounds fair."  
"It's thrilling." Instructively she raises her bony finger, seems more dead than alive at this moment and with that like a perfect fit for this town. "Let's see how this works out."  
"Thank you."

You don't let time pass, don't wait to go out of this room and to close the door. Alva is in a better company when she's alone. You like this distance that you two have. The bottles with their fillings who have a steady place in the walls seem to look back at you. Piercing like daggers on naked skin, between fault and accusation, this false overlooking follows you to the floor where the entrance seems inviting and the light pure.  
It doesn't need much overthinking to know what you going to do now. The idea of a little game found a place in your head. Jerome and some chosen souls will take place, won't find a way out if you don't want it. Maybe you even go to take place yourself. To observe it, to control it and pull the strings in the back. This is the reason why you go ahead with safe feeling steps because you have no time for something else. The longer you need, the more moments full of mistakes will pass.  
Your hands push against the wooden frame of the entrance, find a way out of the building. The soles of your shoes tap on stone, heavy air surrounds you and the everlasting noise of driving cars combined with annoyed people breaths some life into your home.  
The thick concrete of the roads is wet, uneven, seems darker in contrast to the empty house-walls which reach high to the sky. Close to each other without leaving space for anyone – that's how it is with buildings, cars, sometimes even people. The one breathes in what the other breathes out and everybody seems used to it. Maybe because this town needs help.  
In this town, heroes fall and the darkness represses the light. The strongest seem painfully weak in the eyes of corruption which craziness eats up the streets. The innocent are found guilty and the brave disappear in the shadows of their fear. The hunters start to be targeted. If children tend to be victims and every optimist loses hope, then they reached this place.  
Then they reached Gotham.  
A town in which every exit brings you back to the entrance.


	2. You're not the worst

Damp air between dirty waste gas, unpleasant in this time of the year in which normal human beings enjoy the late sunbeams of the beginning of autumn. Just not here.  
In Gotham, the good days are the dry ones, when the sidewalk isn't paved with dead bodies. Or blood. Or munition from bad solved conflicts.  
You buried your hands in the pockets of your jacket, collecting the heat which stays there. In front of you a crowd of people, somewhere on their way to work and back. Your eyes search for something. Smoke lifts from some windows, blends itself with petrol air and oil, and somewhere burned fat. A snack car stands half on the pavement without getting punishment because it feeds the police. Those are the typical impressions, known pictures. Cold facades and banal lies between which life melts away.  
For you, as a contract killer, it's important to seem like the rest. Fit your surroundings. Don't attract attention, don't stare. Just look over the place and hear your heart beating evenly. _Breath in._ Don't think about the smell which settles down in your clothes. _Breath out.  
_Only the thin fog close to the ground holds your attention, distracts you. Just for one instant, you decide to look at it. Purely white, deceptive clean as if there would be less gum-paper and cigarette ends – less dirt.  
The sight disgusts you as much as it fascinates you, brings your eyes back to the snack car where you finally stop. A routine like every day. The offers are small and the selection modest but it's enough to fill the stomach. That's why your mouth angles scurry up. Being friendly is important. It helps others to forget after you told your order which didn't change in the last three years. At the same time, you dig the money out of your pocket. It strums, catches your attention and is enough to pay the bill.  
The voice of the vendor sounds as greasy as always when he thanks you. It shows you clearly that his day will pass like every other one. Getting up, eating breakfast, standing in front of a day with hopes that again the law will look in another direction. Approximately it's the way you live too. But you still have to sharpen the knives, clean pistols just to believe that Gotham will find peace one day. If you really want that you don't know. But you believe it anyway. It's no secret that this thought is just wishful thinking and that you forget it as soon as you open the dirty windows to greet the town in silence. Sad repression of childish wishes.  
Your way continues, leads you past coats and unfitting jewellery. The goal is the news stall like every day because it is Gotham in one look and because you like to stare on the articles. Meanwhile, you nibble on your foot, feel the heat on your lips, on your skin. With that the weather seems even colder than it already is, fitting for the people in their everyday life without right and mercy. One can just accept it, you know that and you do it. You don't care about it any more because you gave up on this town and at the same time you want to keep it even when it won't change. The news stall makes the picture even stronger.  
Your fingers feel the rough paper of the first exemplar on the top of the staple. Cool papers on the tips, printed with thick black letters which turn the first page into an intrusive call for help. They report a gun battle, someone got lost, the crazy keep the _GCPD_ running and everyone is turning around in circles. The daily news seems to never change because the big plans need time to find a halt on smudged ways made of black ice. Petty criminals search for the money they believe to find somewhere in this system. Power seems out of interest. Maybe because they know that nobody can control Gotham. The big ways are just for the insane in this pool of killers which like to send each other charming death letters.  
Even that isn't new any more.

A silent sight comes over your lips, makes the breath through the food unusual hot. A memory that you have to find Jerome. A young man who stays everywhere and nowhere. That's the reason why you leave the newspaper behind and start moving again, staying near the house facades so that you can vanish unseen in one alley. A passage with few people because everyone hangs on life. Between the mouldiness of the walls and the rust of some fire-escapes can happen too much. Between the fear to get crushed by those feelings, some are afraid to greet death. The victims here are way too often children of these streets, crushed by life, shot by munition that nobody can hear. At least they all act like they can't because it's easier to hear away than risk their own life.  
Your steps echo, climb up the outside walls and fall silent somewhere distant where you can't hear them any more. The goosebumps remain. At the same time, it leads you out on the other side, moves the thick columns of a bridge in your view. This place is the home of the homeless. That's something they believe and you do too.  
Homeless keep their eyes open when other people don't because their lives depend on it. And maybe because it's everything that's left for them on these cobblestones and stinking mattresses. Information means money and that on the other side means alcohol to make the cold nights feel warm. Those things make these people the best option if someone needs anything.  
Shortly your eyes turn left, then right before you cross the street. Pulling up the shoulders a little because the weather licks over your neck and every breeze pulls on your hair. On the other side, waiting men and women, forgotten from the masses, who surround a burning shopping cart. They warm up their crooked fingers by the flames, remain silent because speaking makes thirsty and the stocks here are limited. You get slower the closer you get. The rest of your lunch that you somehow can't taste disappears in your mouth. Then you stop without getting closer. Forsaken ones don't speak when they are in groups because nobody wants to tell the others what he knows. It's harmful to do so. A problem made in seconds.  
Just this place is left with some limited points and a few individuals who don't believe in the warmth of the fire any more. Under them a middle-aged woman. Deep furrows on dry skin, traces of time on the face, the hands. She is the target.

"Excuse me," you say. Your counterpart is a human too, deserves some respect. "I have a question."  
"Go away," she replies briskly, looks disapproving and awfully averse. That's how it often is because the nice tone seems terribly wrong between broken souls.  
"Do you maybe know where I can find Jerome Valeska?"  
"Holy crap, no! Piss of."  
Asking more than necessary counts to the few things you avoid. To do what she wants is easier, finding a new target too. A man, stunted by life, alcohol and hope. He leans on a column and tries not to freeze in his holey sweatshirt.  
"Excuse me. Did you maybe hear something about Jerome Valeska?"  
Silence. With a silent sigh, you kneel and try to get a better look from your counterpart. His eyes are glassy, lost in another world which exists only in his head. He survives in a dying way and you know that you can't wake him. Because it would kill him. On the spot.  
"Valeska?"  
Somebody speaks to you while you slowly get up. Again you sigh, roll your eyes. Your position stays bent. Most of the time it's not helpful if somebody comes to you out of free will because many try their luck with information that's absolutely useless. For a few seconds, there is the question of which reaction you should give this stranger. In the end, you decide on a neutral mien. "Yes, Jerome Valeska."  
"I know where he stayed the last time I saw him," says your new interlocutor and shows off gums without teeth. It's a man. His shaky voice and the body hidden behind countless clothes fitting for winter tell you this much.  
"And this is where?"  
"Well, you need to pay me for this information. Let's say...fifty bucks."  
"Hundred if you first give me the answer and it shows off to be a good one." You have enough money. Mister Halmond did everything for that and you did too. It's not even important so that it's no problem to pay more if the jobs end successfully this way. His hands are shaking, he swallows dry. When he starts speaking it's so fast that he tangles in his own words.  
"I ha-have seen him not long ago. Yes, I have! H-He hid in a former ho-hotel... The..the...Andalaz. I-I think they want to leave it soon."  
"I see," you murmur silent, more to yourself than to your counterpart. Every normal human would want to leave the former Andalaz someday. Over the years this house dilapidated into something that reminds more of a rat hole than a habitation. That Jerome finds a hideout in this place explains why the police can't find him.  
Normally he has a propensity for the noble lodgings. He will stay truthful to that, that's no question but he still seems to search for a fitting place. Good for you. It's a helpful clue, you have to admit that. That's why it's worth the investment when you grab into your pocket and pull out a hundred dollar bill to give him. Right after that the scenario lies behind you and stays there while you head back. Back to Alva to look if she already had an idea to turn this job into art.

Again the alleys of this town pass you, sunk in breaking sunbeams which fall trough thick clouds in the sky. It feels good to know what to do. Like a new piece in a puzzle that slowly turns into a picture. If all pieces are on the right place Jerome dies.  
You recognize your trot, the fast walk of your legs. The pulse pumps the blood faster through the veins and lets you wheeze because the heavy air hardly reaches your lungs. Until the food carts which still stands half on the pavement. The newspaper on the stand has hardly decreased.  
For an instant, you just breathe in, notice the smell of fast food stronger than before. The mass of humans has diminished, is stuck to the neck in work. The newly arisen silence which still isn't comforting but less rushing lies down over the districts of the town, cradle it in wrong safety. Somewhere could explode a bomb in this very moment and the GCPD would just cry out because they are asked too much of. There is work in every corner and that's the reason why you do what you do. Kill to make the town a little bit better.  
As if it would be of no concern your shoulders twitch before you decide to go on. At the same time, you can hear a scream, a cry for help. Shortly you look over your shoulders, looking for the reason. A young girl without any knowledge of the streets and even less educated in stealing runs in your direction, with a handbag in her hands. A nearly typical scenario which seems just annoying. But you aren't a monster. There is a heart in your chest and you still own somewhat that seems like a sense of justice. That's the reason why you look back in front of you. You wait, feel how this thief comes closer. A tingle on your skin, such a good feeling and a warning. With every second it gets stronger, lies icy claws around your throat and steals your breath. That always happens. In danger, in attacks from behind. A blessing like you think.  
The wait continues. A few seconds in which the heart beats faster. You ignore the wish to look back and start to count down the last five seconds. Always knowingly breathing. Then you reach to the side in the middle of nothing, somehow just in time to catch one strap of the handbag. You stand stays firm so that the girl loses halt and stagger back by the backfiring momentum. She is dirty, maybe hungry and steals to somehow survive. But even then the rules of the strongest counts and she was clearly not prepared for this foray. This is her punishment.  
Just one step aside and the bag finds out of her hands. She, on the other side, manages to find a footing. A short look to her, eyes full of hate because you're better off than her. But she can read this situation and uses her intellect to start running away again. Without the stolen goods but with a life. With some luck, she will get a new chance. Like a new day which keeps her alive.

You look after her while holding the leather in your hands, believing in the good deed seconds ago. Behind you, a round woman stops, wheeze heavily, a little disgusting. You give her back the bag while holding the distance. She shouldn't come closer to disgust you even more. A tight cloud of perfume and sweat surrounds you, mixed with fumes and smoke. Her body is plugged in a way to small dress which seams stretch dangerously. It makes you wonder when they will tear. She breaths out vodka, you can smell it but you still smile because you don't know what else to do.  
"Why did you let that brat get away? She robbed me!" The first words from her are bicker, exhausting because her breath is now enough to make place for her dissatisfaction.  
"At least I could safe your bag," you say way to nice with pressed voice. The bad mood should just go by because you aren't the bad one and there is no sense to go further than you have to.  
"Thank you! Really. Couldn't you have just held that girl in this place?"  
"Couldn't you have just run faster?"  
"What?" She wheezes like a bull, scrapes with the low heels of the shoes on her feet as if she is trying to take somebody on. Instead, she just shakes her head and with this oily blonde hair. Then she takes back her bag and just stomps past. You offended her because she was so slow. There was no way for her to go faster. Not with this restricting dress with the wrong size. And not with those shoes which heels nearly break under the weight.  
You absolutely offended her and you did it with pleasure.  
With the eyes, you follow this unknown woman a little longer, watch how she gets away somehow. Just for a moment, there stays this true smile on your lips because she counts to those people which show the best side of Gotham. It's funny. A little. And it satisfies you because you did something that made the day a little better without killing someone. True effort because you aren't a bad human. Not in your eyes and not in the eyes of your boss. At least you believe that. Something you have to keep because right after it awaits boredom and indifference. Both are present. Not one of them will go away.  
You can just outplay it.


	3. Getting ideas

You're hesitating again. The hand lies on the doorknob which leads straight into the world of the dead and players and you just can't bring yourself to open it. Cold gazes on your skin, forgotten souls in bottles where everyone can see them – naked and unprotected, fully exposed. Extremely disgusting and at the same time oppressive so that the air on your lips seems bitterly flat. A deep breath in, feeling unwell.  
The eyes fixed on the passage, you want to believe in solutions behind corpses and blood. Maybe not the best idea, there are certainly better ways, but not a single one seems tangible. Something else than Alva was always out of question and at the same time it wasn't. Standing between two sides you always choose the easiest that seems way harder when you look up close. Behind this door waiting are pictures of impossible habits. On some days the view seems more suffocating than on others. But there is no way to escape so that your only chance is to open the door, followed by a harsh breath in of heavy air.  
The smell of blood vanished, leaves just bitter medicine. Alva sits on her table, threw the paper on the chair to the ground and is concentrating on some new files. Maybe new researches. She has enough of those, too many which she wants to make real. She is crazy to believe that she's able to build a world of mutants – one day if the economy breaks down and the human lives are getting worthless. At the same time, she is too good-hearted because she's working on experiments to bring health to a new level. She combines both sides in her body, found the thin middle but never goes obviously too far. Just in secret, if nobody is watching. While she goes insane and digs the eyes of somebody out with a spoon because she fell in love with the gaze and fell for the colour.  
Attentive you watch her, careful from top to bottom. Terrible unkempt, horribly deep down in work, never sleeping but always half asleep. She is the best choice and you learn that every time you visit her. Somehow, because she's like Gotham.

"Always the same." Grumbling, Alva tilts her head, speaks into the room, speaks to you even though she's not looking at you. "You come in and stare at me. One day I'm going to pick out your eyes and I won't save them in a bottle of memories and love. I'm going to throw them away."  
"Mercy," you mumble while your hands are rising automatically as if the simple defence would help. Fact is, you can't defend yourself from Alva. That's why you put your arms down and watch how she turns her head in your direction; as far as she can because she doesn't want to move the chair.  
"You're here because of your idea that is mine, I think. Am I right?"  
"You could say so."  
"Well, I already gave you an idea. I can just help you to get it finished quick. After all, a survival game is a piece of education full of wrong decisions, I think."  
"Could be," you say, agreeing with her because she is right.  
"What's wrong?" Her voice sounds checking, testing, lets you swallow because it makes you nervous. Somehow her tone wakes uncertainty in you, anxiety which is not allowed to come out. Just a strong position and clear words underline that you try to be the opposite of this. You try to have confidence in the things you do.  
"I found out where Jerome hides," you answer her, looking away from the black hair and study the room. "I'm going to visit that place to see how I can make him vanish. A fight would be bad."  
"Good, okay!" Alva nods, recognizes the effort in your words as a beginning and lets the hand wander down to the knob of the drawer under the table. "In an emergency case, you can still kill him with those hands of yours."  
It's a fair death you search for your victims but Alva brings up something extremely simple. Games aren't your biggest talent, fights are in the middle, surviving is the one thing you've learned in perfect detail. In the end, you would kill Jerome without a good plan if you have to because everything else failed. But you won't wish for that.  
Your eyes stare at the hands of Alva while she rummages in her compartment full of murder medications. Long fingers, remembering of the legs of a spider, dig like unstable threads through her belongings, catching something she pulls out. Two injections, a smile on her thin lips. They are limpid, unpredictable, seem deceptive empty but tempting because they could hold anything and nothing inside.  
"I think you will like this," Alva says, doesn't turn into your direction because she is still too lazy to do so. She just holds the two injections over her shoulder. "Poison. Two minutes and your victim is dead. If Jerome plans to stay at home prick one of them in his ass. After that, you can bring him straight down to the grave."  
A grin on your face, a nice idea but not the goal. She knows what she does, and she does it with so much serenity that it makes you a little more relaxed. In seconds like this, all the disturbing bottles and bloody stretchers seem nearly forgotten. That makes her likeable so that the "_Thank you_" comes easily from your lips.  
"Does that mean you're going to catch him now? Wait and kill?" She continues asking because there is nothing better to do except watching at some notes and search for answers.  
"No, first I need to see Barbara. Even though I hate to admit it, she is the best one to get her hands on helpful information. Better ones than I get on the street. Of course, she doesn't care about Jerome's whereabouts, but she may be able to tell me if he has friends and who they are."  
"Funny how you get told who to kill, but they always forget to mention how long the list behind all that is! That's pretty dumb, I think!" Hysterically pulling the arms in the air, Alva shakes her head. Even at this point, she's not totally wrong but that's how this work functions. There is always a professional so it's his task to find out the rest. In this case, it is your task. Normal people don't have to jump randomly into danger and the heads of Gotham wouldn't even think about doing something that could cost their lives. What's left are the known informants, such as Barbara Kean who tends to be unpleasant in her very own way. Nobody can dodge her gaze. Not even the darkest shadows on the streets hiding in the corners of house facades. She sees everyone and everything what makes her extremely valuable.  
"I will come back If I'm in need of something," you break the rising silence, trying to get your thoughts away from the blonde who knows how to kill you with one look. A useless act because you turn right on the spot to get to the exit, knowing where you have to stop. Alva takes your words between all that with a wave. She seems like she doesn't care anymore about the operation. With that, your attention turns away, gets replaced by severity in the heart which seems like listlessness. The only nice part of this job is to kill, that's how it always has been. Everything else is more misery than freedom.

**X0X0X0**

Magnificent is what makes Barbara. She lives showy under the wings of the underground where everyone can feel her on the skin but nobody knows how to find her. She is an artist in her way, turning things the way she wants them. This is fascinating and scary at the same time because nobody knows what her mind is planning next.  
She is the owner of the nightclub which once belonged Fish Mooney before someone ripped it out of her hands. Chaos between her and the umbrella holder, a tragedy which took place only once on the stony ways of drunken souls. But she doesn't let herself be killed. Whatever happens, somehow she always comes back, fitting Gotham as if she's a cornerstone in this town. Remarkable, you have to admit. But no help in this situation since your port of call isn't Mooney but Kean.  
The sympathy has its limits as you muster the facade of the club, left and forgotten, pushed from one to another. What one takes will be brought back to the beginning one day. The wheel spins without breaks because everyone in this town dies and is unable to die at the same time. Nobody passes away for the first time, not even when he's shoot with a dozen bullets. Except life was meaningless. If so, the town doesn't try to do a revival in its most horrible ways. That wasn't the case with Kean. Her life has meaning.  
Letting the shoulders relax you dare to breathe deeply, sort your words so that the concept behind them doesn't break into pieces. Then, one foot follows the other one, the honk from distant cars fade in the noise of the evening which stays on the Streets and occupies every space. You lay a hand on the cold steel, finding a grip, pull on it so that you can hear the click. Even though this place is closed the door is always open. Maybe because everyone knows that this club has way more to offer than cool drinks, stale air and blinking lights which turn every party into a surreal mosaic of alcohol and sweat. This is exactly the ambience that seems forcefully repulsive. It grosses you out because on the dance floor you mostly find people who think they are special. Shiny eyes in wrong beauty and among the lost souls who just want to dance to forget. So often in the company of soft laughter from encouraging drinks, long nights leave borders and the next day reaches tired over the town. Work calls. Freedom drowns. Nearly nobody comes to this place out of real fun.

You slip into the inner of the building, let go of the door, push the thoughts into a different corner and hear how the steel softly clicks back into the lock. What's left are darkness behind velvet light and beguiling colours to stimulate the mood. _Ultraviolet._  
The obtrusiveness at this hour hurts your head. The sting grows bigger, reaches trough your head, lets points dance in front of your eyes. They try to tell you how less you fit into this world. But you have to walk forward anyway, confident, with unstable steps because nausea gets more with every move you do. It is followed by pain. As if someone pushed a needle into your thumb, slowly and with care so that you can feel every centimetre. That's how you feel and you give all these things twenty seconds to get even worse.  
Slowly you push yourself ahead to find the first corner which leads into the main room of this building. There it isn't the drinks and lamps on the counter which jump directly into your eyes. Your attention stops at a sparkling dress, on the patterns which draw themselves golden over the fabric to find an end at the spine. Her back is completely exposed, showing in your direction. Naked skin, blonde hair in beautiful waves, cut short so that her neck is shown. She is sitting straight, but she seems to take no notice of you. That's the reason why you make yourself existent.  
"Miss Kean, I need your help."  
"We're closed," she answers harshly, repellent. Her voice is filled with despair. The reason behind this is a riddle to you but it sounds painful like it's consuming her. You can somehow feel the same in your head. A little groaning, a little scratchy.  
"I know that but I'm not here to drink."  
At first, she doesn't react. She just bends forward, appears to collect her thoughts before she finally turns to you. Her eyes seem angry, her face waiting. "What?"  
"I need information about Jerome Valeska," you say, getting to the point as fast as possible because Barbara clearly doesn't want to talk to you.  
"Jerome?" She is full of disbelieve, raises an eyebrow before she laughs silently. "What do I get from telling you what I know about this insane redhead?"  
"Payment, as always."  
"That won't be enough. I have no time to deal with that plague, too. And he will surely pay me a visit to say thanks for my service."  
"I'm here because I'm going to kill him. He won't have the time to send a greeting card on the house." A dismissive gesture at your side. The severity stays in this room without reason. If you get what you need there is no way for Valeska to get away, both of you know that but nobody wants to trust this game.  
"No. If you want to know something about Jerome, it would be better to pay him a visit and ask. Maybe both of you come together in Arkham and tell each other stories."  
"What if I don't want to know something about Jerome in particular?" You are still trying, accustom to the bad light that throws long shadows on Barbara's face. She's still not convinced, leans back at the counter, just looks at you and you give her the time that she needs to think about the question.  
"What do you want?"  
"Does Jerome have company?"  
Again Barbara seems to laugh at you, shakes slowly and extensive her head. She appears to find interest in the picture behind the question. "Oh, he has them indeed. There is always someone who is dumb enough to make a contract with the insane."  
"Who are they?"  
"People from Arkham. The institution for scum is big." She smiles, compulsively, nearly disgusted from the memory of being there herself. "Jonathan Crane and Jervis Tetch. One of them hypnotizes people and the other one sprays around with a gas that is said to make the biggest fear of someone real. At least that's what I heard. However."  
Softly you bite your bottom lip, try to create a picture out of her words. Both men are known, were big hits in the news before they got into Arkham. With that, you know from whom to keep a distance if possible. Hypnosis is the work of one while gas is the speciality of the other. Two remarkable hurdles which make everything harder but not impossible. They won't spend every free minute with Jerome. That means there are hours when you can attack. When he is alone. A present for you.  
"Is that all?" Tired, Barbara tries to get you out of her way because her time is precious and you are bothersome. Her problems are nothing that needs to be dealt with by others. They're not interesting because they're not yours. A short nod is enough before you take some steps backwards. Then you turn around to stop at the exit.  
"I will send you the money as always."  
She ignores you, is already back to not notice anything. Something you can deal with. There is no reason to border her even more. In the end, she is important, irreplaceable so that you're not allowed to get on bad terms with her.  
The dull pounding in your head is still there but can't distract you. It will get better if the club falls back, if Gotham gets present again while the air is dirty but the light natural. In front of the door, you will form your plan. Breath in, check the pulse and breath out. The next step will be easier.


	4. Collecting toys

A game that was made for everyone presupposes that the creator doesn't have to get his hands dirty. That's an unspoken rule, followed by way too many people. Even you.  
Killing Jerome with your own hands would turn the game into something personal and that is something that you don't want. Alva said it once, sometimes it comes up in your head, but it's wrong. Just one way is the right one. The one of Jerome.  
He prepares little attractions full of happiness, surrounded by bitter games and bloody wishes. Something that you can imitate to kill him. At the same time, a chaos which charm is uncatchable even though it seems tempting to try. Like Alva said it has to be a survival game, small and fast because the time is limited and the price high. You didn't think long about it, just tried to connect the ends of some ideas. Nothing from all of this seems funny but Jerome could turn it into something special. Maybe he's going to make his show out of this, takes on the work until the grave. From your side, it won't be better than the simple line in your head. Being a show master must be learned. Your fields are the messages in pictures on a crime scene, broken and lost like the life that was taken. Flickering candles, dying flowers, bottled drugs on white tiling. An own language. Your language. Completely different than moderation of a show in which blood seems absolutely pointless.  
Your lips are pressed together, bringing pressure, pain, can't make the idea tasty. Every thought seems too much, wrong, makes no picture that fascinates you. What's left is the simple variant: _putting Valeska together with some strangers. Dogs of the streets that nobody in Gotham will miss.  
_Nevertheless, the event can go wrong. Without a real audience, without real quality, it won't be more than a cage with unloved little things. The knowledge is there but won't help, drags on the shoulders because unimaginativeness dominates. You pull your jacket closer to your body and try to turn the rushing steps into calm ones. It fails. In you prevails the urge to move, to do something without being noticed. But it stays a riddle where you want to go. You don't have to search any more. There is already a building in your sight that will turn into a mass grave. You know this town, know where the rotted houses turn Gotham into something tired. A little lost between all the things that need to be saved and end up behind nevertheless. Because they have no meaning. Things like that are helpful from time to time.  
At the edge of the town, far away from the law, in a miserably cheap hotel, your hopes start to bloom. There, Jerome will find out about his situation and all the others will enjoy it. At least in your head, muddled with pictures from past missions.

You stop.  
Your breath pushes hardly through your lungs, comes over your lips and leaves nothing more than the feeling of nervousness biting on the nerves. Maybe it's because of the plan, but it could be everything that makes you alive. Normally you keep it simple. Catch, kill, decorate. You give death a story, a meaning that was already written down. This time you have to write the script before someone plays it and the story starts. Similar to a movie, moving to the rhythm of time until the end. This has its charm but possesses oppressive aspects of new demands which seem to stamp on everything. Nobody will escape.  
What's left are unstable breathing and the knowledge that the chest will rise and lower. Time passes to fast, you know that since you felt like thinking four seconds in ten minutes. The sun slowly retires, let itself get devoured at the end of the world. Reddish rays reflect in the widows of skyscrapers, turn the town in a fitting blood red. The same colour that one has to clean up from stones of the pavement. That is no imagination because everybody knows that revenge bites through the heart without any break. Everyone has a knife, as well as a bad day. Nevertheless, the population does not decrease. Instead, it is increasing because everyone is looking for a place in this broken industry of power just to complain and then go out of line. Only when the people have arrived here, they realize that one can not tame the minds and can not bury the hatred. Something you can see right away if you look closely enough.  
For a brief moment, you put your head back, watching the world above you, admiring the terribly limited freedom. It becomes darker, with every breath and haunting, as it sinks into blackness. Also this evening there will be no stars because they have long gone out.  
Your hand goes into a pocket of your pants, dig out a flip phone, with which you want to call Mr Halmond. The display seems unnaturally bright in the face of this hour, where everything mixes in dark colours between red and black. The names in the phone list seem endless, written in straight lines, completely meaningless. A collection of memories because most of the faces behind the numbers are already dead. Murdered by you, killed by your victims. Everything is represented, only a little is still there. Halmond is one of those exceptions that is coming to the foreground right now. Your finger only needs to press the green handset once. Then the device finds its way to the ear, makes itself felt with cold aluminium of the outer shell, while the ringing in the line appears noticeably protracted. Only twice before he picks up.  
"Are you getting results?" No welcome, no joy. An icy voice of fewer expectations reaches you, inquires directly after the important things.  
"Yes, some."  
"You need help?" He doesn't ask because he has to, but because he already knows the answer and just wants you to confirm it. Comparable to a judge who knows much more than the defendant himself. Pointless and yet winning.  
"I need some man at _Sully's & Mey._ They need to seal up the windows on the first floor and to lock them on the second. Furthermore, the two doors leading outside need to be watched," you reply calmly. Your stage gets a name, maybe even a new coat of paint. It's clear what you need, but it's not sure if it's enough.  
"I will send some men. The matter will be done in about two hours."  
"Thank you." You remove the phone from the ear and hang up before your words hit your boss. Again the display arouses interest. One name, one number, just press once to connect. Everything is easy, just like your job. Think positive, you stick to it.

Shaking your head, you let the device disappear, stop distracting yourself so that you can start moving a little more quietly. The insecurity is still gnawing at the conscience and it's no secret that you feel the same way you did on your very first assignment. Somewhere lost between concrete and fumes with a plan that is doomed to fail and yet somehow works. That's the only reassuring thing. It will be just like then, certainly. Worry about nothing, profit for success.  
Burying your hands in your pockets, you walk along the sidewalk, at the edge of the road, populated by lonely souls and alcoholized glances. The game requires participants, and in the state where most of these people are, they can be lured into it.  
Already from afar, you see two men in expensive suits and with a big smirk, artificial smile and well-groomed hands. They talk to each other, not able to walk straight any more. For office people, the day ends early and the night breaks at noon, where the money sits loosely and the bars wave tempting. They are thieves of society, spending money that they don't own and are getting away with it because the law has loopholes. In your eyes, they look like fun, entertainment, and new heights that they can bring to the game. That's why you raise a friendly hand, draw the interest of both in your direction. Their looks, filled with mistrust and subliminal disregard. Only a hint of both, but noticeably present. In their eyes, you are nothing more than a cockroach on the streets with no name and no money.  
"Gentlemen," you start, make your voice gentle and your smile sure, "you look like wise businessmen to me. Did you know that the Sully's & Mey will get a reopening tomorrow?"  
"Who said that?" One of them answers, tilting his head because he probably knows better.  
"I'm sorry. I'm _Marylion_ from the _Gotham City Daily Activity Report_, a journalist. I'm trying to invite more people to the reopening because...the more of you come, the bigger the article gets. A win-win situation for all of us since the heads of Gotham will be there too." Lying, sometimes you can do it without batting an eyelid. "Would you come?"  
Both look at each other, not surprised because they believe you and at the same time knew nothing about it. As if it is nothing new to go blind and deaf between the needs of the poor. Presumably, they realize, besides the alcohol, only the things they have to. An advantage for you.  
"Sounds good. When tomorrow?"  
"In the evening, at eight."  
They nod to you, swallow the bait with swollen chests and straightened shoulders because they think they are special. The thing is, they are, just not in the same sense as they think.

Your legs start to move again, while your eyes are watching for even more victims. To find someone isn't difficult. Everyone is perfect and not good enough at the same time. It doesn't matter which of those hands kills Jerome, but it has to be one. Not a big obstacle, considering that they are all normal people in the end. Ghosts who don't know why they live in this place. And not all of them are eligible, you finally admit that. Sometimes the shadows of the streets are nice companions. In your eyes, they aren't supposed to die before your boss gives you the order to kill them. So you overlook them.  
When you collide with someone, the searching look passes, settles down. There is this young girl, whom you have already stopped once on this day. She seems to recognize you, wrinkles her nose, speaks to you. Somehow. "What?"  
You have done nothing, said nothing, and yet she is so terribly hostile. Understandable, at the same time annoying. If she dies, it's not your problem.  
"Nothing. I just thought...you need money, right?" It's a simple question with a simple answer that you already know. Sometimes you are no better than Halmond.  
"Why would you care?"  
"I don't. I just think that if you try to steal something, you should steal it from the right ones. I heard from some businessmen that an exchange will take place at...I think it was Sully's & Mey. They said that there will be at least three suitcases full of money. People in suits feel way to save on these streets."  
"And why should I believe you?"  
"You don't have to, it's your decision. But if you plan to go take some money for me too. Sadly I've got no time to be there." You do not want to say more. For young girls, the most important thing is to arouse interest and not to demand an answer. You just start moving again, go, because you don't care about the rest. If she comes, it's okay, if not, it doesn't matter. Her gaze bores into your back, lying on your body, reflecting the mistrust in her. She will come, will certainly, because she wants too much and knows too little. A proof that the streets haven't always been her home.

A uniform clack accompanies your steps, the calmness in the arms weighs and tensions to tear. Anything that doesn't fit this mood could turn against you. A simple thought that should bring security, although there is no security here. Your eyes are attached to the walls of houses, gliding over the street lamps, which turn on at a steady distance. Lights illuminate the ground with tired spots, brighten up cars and apartments, so everyone can be sure that the city is still awake. Everything coupled with the human misconception that the world protects you as long as you move in the light. You know better. Even in sunshine, the blood is red and the urge to kill remains.  
Again and again, you let your gaze slip into the alleys you pass by, finally noticing a homeless person on the floor and a thug nearby. The latter waving his arms around, still seems to be talking quietly, maybe hissing so that no one hears him in the sound of darkness. They are both social garbage, if you believe the standard, that all try to pretend. At least that would give them a reason to die. For one, it won't be more than a lonely death on the street anyway, and sooner or later the other one will probably just be torn off. With his inaccurate movements and restless legs, he doesn't make a professional impression. He won't come far with his dreams. You can sort them out. Both. And you will.  
Determined, you move closer, leisurely as if nothing could disturb you. One of them is startling, the more agile, restless. "Hey, piss off, bitch!"  
"Shut the fuck up, that's my territory." You give yourself as one of them because they trust their kind more than the normal people or the new rich.  
"Women don't possess anything."  
"Let's find out or you piss off." Provocative, you lift your arms, pretend that nobody knows better. "If you wanna piss someone off, try it at Sullivan or whatever they call it."  
"Sullivan? What the fuck is that?" He comes closer, rubs his nose, looks interested but helpless. His mind doesn't even warn him, seems disconnected, terribly numb.  
"Oh, come on. The cheap hotel," you groan playfully annoyed from his dumbness. "That empty thing. Sullivan, you know. Sullivan and Mai."  
"You mean the Sully's & Mey, you stupid bitch! What the hell should I do there?"  
"I don't know! Some rich buggers going to have a scary party there by tomorrow. There is always something to get."  
"Shit, for real?" He obviously doesn't belong to the sort that thinks first and then jumps into the fire. He eats out of your hand because he is naive and thinks that one day his big chance will come. Maybe he will get it, in the face of death.  
"Yeah. This will be a hell of a party."  
He nods, looks back to his victim and leaves. Not a single word can be found on his lips. Instead, he follows the path down to nowhere. Uninteresting, touches you just cold in a manner of seconds because people like him want nothing else.  
This leaves only the homeless person staring apathetically to the ground. In front of him, you go to your knees, grab him by the shoulder and shake gently. His stiff body hardly follows the movement, seems rigid, almost motionless. Until he startles, looks at you, opens his mouth behind thick grey whiskers. He understood nothing, seems too confused. "Am I not allowed to sleep here, miss?"  
"You are but I saw you here and I'm working for the help of the homeless. Tomorrow night at Sully's & Mey you will be able to get a warm meal for free. You can warm up and sleep there."  
He shivers, seems to be happy, lets his head go up and down as if he agrees. You smile at him because he deserves it and because you are sorry for him. Then you get up again, turn your back on him and drag your body back to the main street. It is getting colder and the last rays only scratch the surface of the sidewalk. It's time for a break. Sleep. There is still enough time for Jerome. Going there and watch him doesn't take long. Before the evening falls, he will be your new toy and maybe even enjoy it.  
Because he has no idea that it is the final destination.


End file.
